Peace and Good Will
by Osheen Nevoy
Summary: "We're going to die tonight, Ned, and on our gravestones they'll carve, 'They were drunk, they were stupid, and they were old enough to know better.'" On a December night in 1952, Ned Calder and Bill Malloy try to solve the mystery of Liz Stoddard's self-imposed imprisonment at Collinwood.


**Peace and Good Will**

_A Dark Shadows Fan Fiction_

Author's Note:

This short(ish) story can be read on its own or as a companion piece to my work-in-progress AU novel _Stand Fast and Damn the Devil_. The hero of both works is Bill Malloy, who made 15 appearances on the show in the first year of _Dark Shadows_, first as Liz Stoddard's devoted friend and fishing fleet manager and then as the show's first fully interactive ghost. He was also the title character of the "Who Killed Bill Malloy?" story arc. In _Stand Fast and Damn the Devil_,I follow an alternate reality in which Bill hasn't been killed at all, and explore some of the possibilities of what might happen if Bill were around to take part in one of the more famous _Dark Shadows _storylines.

The current story is a background piece set 15 years or so before the beginning of _Dark Shadows_. It looks at how things may have been in the early years of Liz Stoddard's self-imposed imprisonment at Collinwood, and at the effects her actions may have had on the people around her.

Another main character of this story, Ned Calder, never actually appears on _Dark Shadows _but is mentioned a number of times on the show. We learn in the course of the show that he was Collins Enterprises Cannery Manager for 15 years, that he resigned in or around 1966 because Liz refused to marry him, (at which point Bill Malloy was given his job), and that he was Liz's supposed one true love (though I choose to dispute that interpretation!), with whom she had had a relationship similar to the ill-fated relationship of Carolyn and Joe.

In the early days of _Dark Shadows_, serious efforts were made to have a number of characters speak with authentic Down East Maine accents and phrases. This includes the "yeah" equivalent variously spelled ayup, ay-yuh, etc. I've rendered it as "ayup" here and "ay-yuh" in my _Stand Fast …_, but it's the same word. For those interested in exploring the Down East dialect, I strongly recommend the web page "The Wicked Good Guide to Mainah English," which has been the main source (no pun intended) for many of the phrases I use in this story.

And, finally, Dan Curtis' heirs own _Dark Shadows_, not me. I'm just having fun with some of the characters and storylines, and indulging my love for the one-and-only Mr. Bill Malloy.

**_Friday, December 19, 1952_**

For the fourth time, Liz Stoddard missed the Collins Enterprises Christmas party.

Or it was the fourth time Bill Malloy knew of. He guessed probably old Mr. Jamison Collins hadn't brought his daughter with him to the annual get-together when she was a baby or a toddler. But company old-timers reminisced about Liz attending the parties from the age of six or thereabouts. They talked about how they'd looked forward to seeing the little girl there each year, dolled up in her brand new party frock and glowing with the thrill of attending a big people's party.

She had certainly been there for all the of company parties Bill had attended. Up until the Christmas party of 1949. He thought back to when he and his dad first hired on with the Collins fishing fleet. He thought of the first employee party they went to. He thought of how Liz had looked to him then: the most stunningly beautiful girl he'd ever seen. She was an elegant, poised young lady home on her Christmas break from Vassar; more gorgeous than any Hollywood star; as regal as a princess and just as unreachable.

_Lot of water under the bridge since then, _Bill thought. But he wasn't sure any of that water under the bridge made any difference.

She hadn't always been so unreachable to him. But tonight she was farther away from him than ever. Now she was Queen Elizabeth of Collinwood. And now she was out of everybody's reach, way up there on the hill in her gloomy old palace just ten minutes' drive away.

Bill knocked back a swig from his glass of punch. He scowled across the crowd of Christmas partiers milling around the Collins Enterprises lobby.

They were his friends and coworkers. They were people in whose company he _ought _to enjoy himself. As always at these shindigs, there was plenty of food, drink, and apparent good cheer. But Bill was willing to bet that amid all the cheer, the main question on everybody's lips was, "Why isn't Mrs. Stoddard here?"

It was a whole Christmas party full of rumors, concerns, innuendoes; tsk-tsking and shaking of heads. Mournfully sympathetic comments about Paul Stoddard still being AWOL. Politely veiled hints that a woman who reacted as Liz was _still_ reacting to her husband walking out on her three years ago must really not be quite right in the head.

In Liz's absence, the Collins Enterprises party-goers had to make do with Prince Roger, instead. The young man was holding court beside the punch bowl, full of the grandeur of his newly-minted Harvard business degree, flirting in tipsy and outrageous style with every woman who ventured within arm's reach. Bill shook his head as he looked at the Collins Prince Regent. But he told himself that tonight Roger had as good a motivation for getting plastered as Bill did.

Not that Roger ever required much motivation to drink himself blotto. But tonight, Bill thought he ought to cut young Rog a bit of slack.

He should cut him some slack because Roger was at the school Christmas pageant that morning, just like Bill was. Just like Bill, Roger was there and he saw the look on Carolyn's face when she realized her mother hadn't come to see her.

Over and over Liz told her daughter she wouldn't be coming. She'd told Carolyn again and again that Uncle Roger and Bill would be there instead. But then Carolyn came running up to them after the show, her construction paper Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer hat falling off as she ran. They'd seen her expression change from hope to hurt when she saw it was just the two of them. They realized then that she had kept on believing her mother would be there, after all.

Roger and Bill shared a quick look of horror as the truth hit home to them, before launching into telling Carolyn how wonderful she'd been. Their congratulations fell on deaf ears as she stood there going red in the face and fighting not to cry.

Bill shook his head and drained the last swallow from his glass.

He loved Liz Stoddard. That didn't mean he thought she was perfect. Right now, he thought she had a hell of a lot to answer for.

He knew that Liz loved her daughter. He knew Carolyn meant more to Liz than anything else in the world.

What he didn't know was how a mother who loved her daughter so much could miss the girl's first school pageant, for the sake of some crazy obsession about never leaving home.

Roger tried hard to make it up to Carolyn. He'd asked in forced cheeriness, "Are you ready for our trip to Bangor, Kitten?"

She just said flatly, staring down at her feet, "No. I want to go home."

"But, Kitten," Roger protested, kneeling beside her, "we had it all planned. You promised you would help me pick out Christmas presents for everyone. We're going to Freese's to visit Santa Claus."

"He's not really Santa Claus," Carolyn snapped disdainfully. "He's a fat man with a fake yarn beard."

"He may be a fat man with a fake yarn beard," Roger soldiered on, "but I am the dashing young man who is going to buy you anything you ask for. Now, what young lady could turn down an offer like that?"

The five-year-old only gave him her deadliest glower. "I'm not going. I'm going home."

In the end, of course, that was exactly what she did. Roger drove to Bangor to do his Christmas shopping alone, and Bill drove Carolyn home to Collinwood in his Collins Enterprises company car. On the way, in the ongoing attempt to distract her from her disappointment, Bill talked about the school Christmas pageants he'd been in when he was a kid. Naturally the attempt didn't work. When they were nearly to the top of the hill, she'd asked him in a thin little voice, "Why didn't my mother come see me?"

"I don't know, Princess," was all Bill could tell her. "I just don't know."

Groundskeeper Matthew Morgan was outside the house when they arrived, his round face red as an apple from exertion as he continued the never-ending process of shoveling the snow off the great estate's massive driveway. He'd stopped shoveling to call, "Afternoon, Miss Carolyn. How was the pageant?" But Carolyn ignored him. She just ran past him, shoved open Collinwood's front door and raced inside. By the time Bill had called a greeting to Matthew and hurried in after her, the girl had already raced up the stairs and was slamming the landing door behind her.

Her mother stepped into the foyer from the drawing room. She held a piece of stationary in her hands and glanced up the stairs in concern. Liz was wearing a vivid red dress that set off her pale complexion and dark hair to their most stunning advantage. To Bill, her appearance twisted the knife of what she'd just done to her daughter. The dress had a jolly Christmas-y look to it. Just the sort of dress she should have worn to Carolyn's Christmas pageant.

"Was that Carolyn?" Liz had asked him.

"Bingo," snapped Bill. "She's a little upset."

Liz's beautiful eyes were sorrowful. As far as Bill was concerned, she should have just saved the sorrow and gone to the pageant instead.

She murmured, "I told her I couldn't be there …"

"Sure. You told her. She kept right on not believing you, because she wanted you to be there so much."

"I should go talk with her," Liz said, starting for the stairs.

"Let it wait," Bill told her. "Give her a while to herself. How 'bout you talk to me first."

A flash of anger gleamed in Liz's gaze. But she only said quietly, "Come in, Bill," and she led the way into the drawing room. Stopping by the sofa and turning to face him, she declared, "I don't have anything new to say to you. We've discussed all of this before."

"Ayup. I don't have anything new to say, either. Because I don't understand you any better than I did the last time we argued about this!"

"I'm sorry, Bill," Liz said to him, proud and icy. "I'm sorry that it troubles you."

"By-the-Jesus, it's not me you should be sorry about! It's Carolyn!"

Liz winced a little at that. Bill tried to press the momentary advantage. "I'm telling you, Liz, it doesn't make any sense! What good did you do anybody by not going to Carolyn's show today? Just suppose Paul Stoddard picked this morning to come waltzing home. Just suppose. Do you think he'd turn around and leave again because you're out at the school Christmas pageant? If the prodigal husband decides at long last to return, you think he's going to flit away again if you're out of the house for an hour?"

Only Liz's voice could hold such calm and such steel at the same time. "I don't want to discuss it with you."

"Sure you don't. And I don't know why I keep on talking about it. Since talking about it's been useless, every time I've tried."

She took him by surprise, then, by smiling at him. "If it makes you feel any better, you aren't alone. I have had this same or very similar conversations this week with Roger, Ned Calder, Richard Garner, Judge Crathorne, and Uncle Phil. And the week isn't over yet."

Bill sighed. "You know we only talk to you this way because … because we care about you. I wish _someone _could say something to you that would make a difference."

An idea occurred to him. It was a stupid, pointless, hopeless idea. But he said it to her anyway.

"I know how you can start patching things up with Carolyn. Bring her to the employee party tonight. She must be about the same age you were when your dad started taking you along. You two can pick out your prettiest dresses together and be the belles of the ball. You've _got _to be able to see how much it would mean toCarolyn. It would mean so much to everyone! You canput behind you whatever these last three years have been about. I know you can do it, Liz. You can come to the party tonight."

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard smiled at him in fondness and regret. "Bill, Bill," she murmured, shaking her head. "You know I'm not going to do that."

"Maybe. Maybe I'm just like Carolyn. I can't make myself give up hope."

And he hadn't. Not until the party had been underway for two hours and more. Not until he'd lost count of how many cups of punch he'd chugged down, standing there watching the door that she never walked through.

And now his glass was empty again. He maneuvered his way more-or-less steadily through the crowd 'till he reached the monumental crystal punch bowl, freshly replenished with scarlet drink, pineapple rings and ice.

"Take two cups at once," advised the man beside him, in the process of following his own suggestion. "It's longer before you need refills."

This sage advice came from Ned Calder. Ned Calder who was just wrapping up his first full year as Collins Enterprises cannery manager, who had the heroic chin and brilliant blue eyes of a matinee idol, and who, back at the dawn of time a couple of decades ago, had been Liz Collins' boyfriend.

Bill snorted. "I don't mind coming back here between every glass. I figure the walk to and from the punch bowl helps me work off the alcohol."

"Suit yourself," said Ned, as he hefted his two glasses. "Seems to me working off the alcohol would be counter-productive."

Ned started wandering over to the looming, tinsel-drenched Christmas tree. Bill wandered along with him. He'd suddenly decided that shared sorrow was better right now than continued glowering solitude. Ned Calder was someone with whom Bill shared plenty of sorrow.

On the surface, both of them were happy, successful men. Maybe most people would think Ned was the more successful of the two. Bill figured he was actually better off than Ned.

Bill's hopeless love for Liz Stoddard wasn't hurting anybody. Ned, on the other hand, had a wife. Gossip said he had married her in the wake of Liz breaking his heart once too often. They had three kids, with another on the way. Gossip also said their marriage was on the rocks. That hadn't stopped them from creating their current bun-in-the-oven. Or maybe it had happened _because _they were on the rocks. Who knew. Bill told himself the state of the Calders' marriage wasn't any of his damned business.

Except that he really ought to hope Ned and Vera would stick together. If they _did _split up, then Ned would probably make a serious effort at winning Liz back. And Bill would have to decide if he was going to fight for her.

Hell, though. Who knew if there would be any point in the two of them fighting over her, anyway. Odds were, the only thing either of them would get out of it would be having their hearts stepped on yet again. Liz would inform them, in regal sympathy and calm, that she was waiting for Paul Stoddard to come home, and that neither of them had a snowball's chance in hell.

_You're drunk, Bill, _he thought to himself. And he thought back at himself, _No kidding._

_It's the perfect night for it._

He and Ned stood side by side with their backs against the wall, beside the Christmas tree in the corner of the room.

Bill asked Ned, "How's Vera doing?" He hoped he was asking that question because he actually cared about the answer. Not just to remind his erstwhile rival that he had another woman to think of besides Liz.

"She's doing all right, I guess. They shouldn't call it morning sickness. Happens day and night. And her favorite dresses don't fit her right now. So she decided she'd sit this one out."

Bill thought, _I'm sure her decision had nothing to do with her knowing you'd be drinking yourself into a stupor over Liz._

Ned Calder remarked, "You're thinking the same thing I am. Aren't you?"

_Hell, I hope not, _thought Bill. "Nope," he said. "I'm not thinking anything."

"Sure you are. You're thinking about how she isn't here."

No need at all to ask what "she" Ned was talking about. It was painfully obvious that he was not still discussing his wife.

The two of them kept staring morosely at the partying crowd. Bill asked, "Did you think she would be?"

"Ayup," said Ned. "You did, too. Didn't you. Whether you admit it or not."

"Maybe," Bill said. "How many times did you try to talk her into it?"

"Only three. Three this week," Ned answered. He started counting off the various attempts on his fingertips. That wasn't easy when he was holding two glasses of punch. "Once when I phoned her this afternoon, once when I gave her my weekly report, and once when I phoned her on Monday. Of course there were all those other times before this week. But who's counting. What about you? How many times did you try?"

"Just the once," said Bill. "Today. The rest of the week, I spent trying to talk her into going to her kid's Christmas pageant."

"That's right," Ned remembered. "Crap. How's Carolyn doing?"

"She's unhappy," Bill said. "Like the rest of us."

"Jeez, Bill. Now I remember why I like talking with you. Every pathetic man ought to have a friend who's as pathetic as he is."

"Speak for yourself, Ned. I'm not pathetic. I'm just drunk."

"It comes to the same thing. I guess I know why nobody else here is talking to us, anyway. We must look as depressing as we sound."

"Ayup," Bill agreed. "I reckon we can leave being the life of the party to Roger."

Ned finished up the second of his two glasses. He stacked them together and reached over to balance them in a convenient hidey-hole amid the branches of the Christmas tree. Bill eyed them in fascination, wondering how long it would be before they fell off.

Ned Calder interrupted this speculation by gripping Bill's shoulder and asking him, "The question is, are you drunk enough?"

Bill looked directly at Ned for the first time since they'd walked over to the tree. There was a dangerous gleam in Ned's eyes. Bill was pretty sure the gleam was a bad sign. Warily he asked the obvious question, "Drunk enough for what?"

"Drunk enough to go up that hill right now and give Elizabeth Collins Stoddard a piece of our minds."

Bill swigged his punch. "That's a stupid idea. She's had plenty pieces of our minds already. She doesn't want any of our pieces."

"She may not want them," Ned said grimly, tugging on his blazer in the attempt to straighten it, "but tonight she's going to have them anyway."

"Ned, this is dumb." Bill wished that every now and then he could find himself in a situation where he didn't have to be the voice of reason. "We've given Liz our opinions and advice 'till we're blue in the face. Everybody she knows has been doing that, for three years. If she doesn't want to take anybody's advice, we're not going to change that by storming up there drunk and making idiots of ourselves."

Ned was hearing none of Bill's rational arguments. Or if he heard them, he didn't care. "We can't let her go on like this, Bill. We can't! We can't let her keep on walling herself up in that mausoleum of a house because that bastard committed his one decent act and walked out on her so she could make a new start on her life!"

Bill muttered, "I didn't think that's why Stoddard walked out on her. I thought he walked out on her because he's a scumbag."

The Collins Cannery Manager waved that argument away. "Why ever he did it. She ought to be happy he's gone! She should give thanks for his absence every day! Instead of wandering around her haunted mansion like somebody in Edgar Allan Poe!"

"You think so. I think so. If Liz doesn't think so, there's no Goddam point in our saying it. For Pete's sake, Ned, calm down. Have another drink. No, don't have a drink," Bill added. "Go home to your family, instead."

"Not until I've made Liz see reason. I've waited too long to do this, Bill. I'm not waiting any longer."

Bill _knew_ this was the worst damn thing Ned could do. But it was all too clear that Calder wouldn't be talked out of it. And suddenly it occurred to Bill that _he _might be making a big mistake himself if he let Ned go up there without him.

He absolutely didn't think the encounter ahead would turn out well for Ned. He thought the chances were vanishingly small that Ned's planned confrontation with the boss would end up with Liz and Ned in bed together. But if the chances of that happening were slim if Ned Calder went up there alone, Bill figured those chances would shrink to none at all if Bill Malloy was there, too.

Liz would probably be mad at him for taking part in this. The prospect of her anger was a lot less haunting to him than the prospect that an argument might rekindle Liz and Ned's romance. They might be finding each other again up there on the hill, while Bill was down here swigging punch at the company Christmas party.

"All right," growled Bill. "I'll come along to try and stop you making too big a jackass of yourself."

"Thanks, Bill," Ned snorted with less-than-subtle sarcasm. "I knew I could count on you."

With Ned marching in the lead and Bill trailing gloweringly behind, they made their way toward the front door. Roger Collins was clearly taking his duties as the party's host seriously. When Calder and Malloy stomped past him – Bill pausing to leave his empty glass on the table – Roger dragged himself out of an obviously engrossing conversation with pretty Peggy the front office secretary.

"Ned, Bill," Roger called out, "are you leaving us already?"

They stopped for the necessary goodnights with the boss' little brother. "Ayup," said Ned. "Keep the party going without us. I'm just giving Bill here a ride home."

_Yeah, _thought Bill. _He's giving me a ride to _your _home, Roger, so we can make your sister hate us. _But he kept his mouth shut.

"Oh," Roger answered. "Had enough Christmas cheer for one day, Bill? Can't say that I blame you. Carolyn was right. That Santa Claus at Freese's _does _have an embarrassingly false beard. The production values of the school pageant were higher." Almost under his breath, he added, "Too bad Carolyn's mother couldn't be there to see that."

"I couldn't agree with you more," Bill muttered. "'Night, Roger; Peggy. Don't trust anything this character says," he added to Peggy, jerking his thumb at the Prince of Collins Enterprises.

The red-haired secretary grinned. "Don't worry," she said. "I don't."

When the frigid air hit them outside, Bill had a moment's hope that the cold would shock some sense into Ned. But it would clearly take more than a Maine December night to accomplish that miracle. Ned's Coupe de Ville was parked just a short piece down the street, so the walk to the car didn't do anything to sober him up, either.

Bill already knew this whole thing was a terrible idea. He didn't know just _how _terrible it was until he noticed the speed Ned was driving at. And their speed wasn't even the worst of their problems.

"Ned!" Bill yelped. "You've been running all the stop signs. And you just ran the traffic light!"

"Keep your pants on. There's nobody else on the streets. They're all at the Collins Christmas party."

"The cops don't work for Collins Enterprises."

"They're not out tonight either. They don't need to be. Everyone else is at the party."

Bill thought it would actually be a blessing if one of the cops did pull them over. It would save them from making frickin' idiots of themselves and from putting Liz on the warpath. But no reassuring lights and sirens came to their rescue.

The ride had been unnerving enough in town. Just outside town it turned downright hair-raising. And they weren't even heading up the hill, yet.

"Jesus, Ned!" shouted Bill. The Coupe performed several graceful swerves before settling back onto something like the straight and narrow. "Pull over! Now! We're getting out and we're walking home! I'm not letting you kill me tonight and I'm not letting you kill yourself either!"

"I'll let you out if you want," Ned said mulishly. "I'm not going home till I've told Liz what I've got to tell her."

"No, sir," snarled Bill. "You're getting out, too. I'm not facing Vera and telling her I saved my own hide but let you commit … vehicular suicide." The words were something of a challenge to his punch-numbed tongue, but he figured their meaning had to be clear enough.

"Sorry, Bill. I've got to talk with Liz."

"What you've got to do is remember you've got a wife and kids! And a baby on the way! They're the ones you should be thinking of. Not Liz."

"I know what I've got," Ned grated. "And I know what I've got to do."

The road started up the hill. The road with its famous hairpin turns that required all a driver's care and attention, even when the driver _wasn't _on a drunken crusade. And even when the road didn't have a nice, greasy coating of snow.

Being inches from destruction didn't seem to trouble Ned Calder. The only thing that stopped Bill from grabbing the wheel was the certain knowledge that if he tried it, he and Ned would go plummeting to their doom.

"We're going to die tonight, Ned," he said, while his guts twisted in fear. "We're going to die, and they'll give everyone a day off work in our honor, and they'll carve on our gravestones, 'They were drunk, they were stupid, and they were old enough to know better.'"

"Don't worry, Bill," Ned promised him, with the confidence born of multiple cups of punch. "I'm not dying till I've said what I've got to say to her."

"Okay, you aren't dying," Bill muttered. "That doesn't help me."

Bill wasn't normally one for praying much. But this wasn't a normal night. He wondered whether the patron saints of sailors and fishermen protected their people on the land, or just on sea. Thinking up a prayer to them might help stop him from screaming every time Ned drove perilously near the edge. So he thought, _Saints Elmo and Andrew, I'm heartily sorry for setting foot in a vehicle driven by this idiot. If you get me through this night alive I'll never do it again. And if you let me live through this I'll never touch a steering wheel after alcohol's passed my lips, because I don't want myself or anyone else to be scared this shitless again!_

Whether through divine intervention or through sheer, dumb luck, they reached the top of the hill without losing their lives or totaling Ned's car. By the space of about an inch, Ned missed running into one of the pillars of Collinwood's grand portico.

Ned barely had the chance to switch off the Coupe before Bill reached out and yanked Ned's keys from the ignition. "You're not getting these back tonight," he announced, shoving the keys into a pants pocket. "And I'm not driving your car tonight, either. A nice walk down the hill will do both of us good. Maybe it'll mean you'll be halfway sober by the time you get back to your wife."

"Bill, come on, now—" began the scowling Ned.

"Don't 'Bill, come on, now' me! You risked both our lives to come up here and say something to Liz. Now you get in there and say it to her."

Ned cast Bill another glare. Then he got out of the car – slamming the door behind him, of course – and strode over to the big, foreboding front door of Collinwood. Once there, naturally, Ned pounded on it as loudly as if he hoped to summon the dead, not just the mistress of the house who probably hadn't even retired to bed yet.

Even after three years, Bill thought it still seemed weird to see Liz open the door herself, instead of that duty being performed by Hanscomb or some other member of the staff. The Collinwood staff whom Liz had fired, every last one of them, on the day after Paul Stoddard skipped town.

Something else looked weird to Bill, too. He'd expected Liz to be furious when she opened the door. In that first instant, before she realized who was standing there, she had a look Bill seldom ever saw on her face. He thought that Elizabeth Collins Stoddard looked afraid.

_Well, why shouldn't she be? _Bill asked himself. _She's a woman living out in the willie-wacks with just her kid, and one groundskeeper in another house on the estate, and somebody comes waling on her door in the middle of the night. Why wouldn't it throw her for a loop?_

As soon as she recognized them, of course, she got an expression Bill was far more used to seeing from her: annoyance. And he reckoned her annoyance was mildness itself compared to the emotions she'd be aiming at them soon.

"Ned. Bill," Liz sighed. "What are you doing here?"

"Sorry to disturb you, Liz," said Bill. "May we come in?"

Already her frown was taking on a sharper edge. She demanded of them, "Did you drive up here?"

"Ayup," Ned began. "Liz, I've got to—"

"You've got to show something resembling good sense!" their employer interrupted him, in far more the tone of voice Bill had been expecting from her. "I'm used to this kind of behavior from Roger. Not from the two of you. Two of the senior-most executives of Collins Enterprises" – that was stretching things, Bill thought, at least as far as his own job was concerned, but he didn't mind the compliment – "and you put your lives at risk driving up here in the snow when you're I-don't-know-how-many sheets to the wind! There is no point in trying to deny it, Ned; it smells like you finished off all of the liquor at the party between you. You're my cannery manager and my assistant fleet manager, not my little brothers. I need you to be employees I can rely on, not lushes with no more sense of responsibility than Roger or Paul!"

In the face of her tirade, Ned was temporarily at a loss for words. Maybe he was startled into silence by her casual, critical mention of her missing husband's bad habits – far from the usual way that she had spoken of Paul Stoddard to them since the night he walked out of her life.

Why ever Ned Calder was being silent, Bill Malloy took the opportunity to get another two cents in. Rubbing his hands together and wishing that he'd worn his gloves, his hat and his coat, Bill said, "All right, boss. You've boxed our ears for us. Can we come inside now?"

She glared. "I ought to do more than box your ears. I ought to dock both your salaries until you show me you can be the responsible employees I believed you to be when I hired you. All right," Liz went on, after another irritated sigh, "you can come in. Quietly! Carolyn just fell asleep. It will be a miracle if you didn't wake her up while you were trying to pound the door down."

Bill didn't wait to be asked twice. Ned, on the other hand, lingered outside the door, with an uncomfortable grimace. He said, "I apologize for the noise."

Liz Stoddard sighed and rolled her eyes. "Come in, Ned." He finally obeyed her, and shut the door but didn't seem to shut out much of the cold. Liz led their little parade across the foyer to the drawing room. At the doorway she stepped aside to let her two employees walk in ahead of her. Oh-so-quietly pulling the massive doors closed behind her, she stood with her back to the door. She snapped icily at Ned and Bill, "And don't think I'm going to offer either of you a drink."

"Don't worry about that," sighed Ned, running one hand over his face and through his hair. "That's not what we came up here for."

"And I am waiting for you to tell me what you did come up here for."

Ned glanced grimly at Bill and said, "First thing to let you know is that coming up here tonight was my idea. Bill did his best to talk me out of it."

Bill nodded his thanks to Ned for that. Ned turned to Liz again and went on. "Bill may not agree with me about how or when to say this. But I'm pretty damn sure he agrees that it's got to be said. I'm pretty damn sure everyone in the company agrees with me. All your friends. All your family. Everyone who cares about Collins Enterprises or about you."

"Please don't leave me in suspense," Liz mocked. Her haughty raised eyebrows and no-nonsense crossed arms promised trouble ahead. "What is this crucial point on which you're unanimously agreed?"

The better part of valor would have been to retreat then and there. But Ned Calder had no intention of retreating. He declared, "This has got to stop."

"This?" inquired Liz. "And what 'this' would that be?"

In that moment three years of questions and concern boiled over. Ned definitely did not remember the sleeping little girl upstairs enough for him to keep his voice down. "Hiding away from the world up here! Acting like you've turned into … Miss Havisham! Failing your employees, your daughter, yourself! Failing everyone who loves you!"

"I told you to be quiet, Ned," hissed Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. "If you wake up my daughter you'll be facing worse than a cut in salary."

"I'm sorry, Liz," Ned grated. "But you owe Bill and me and all the rest of us some answers."

"Do I?" she snapped. "Perhaps you will answer me this: in what way, precisely, am I failing you? For the past six years this company has shown record profits. Employee salaries and pensions are among the highest in the state of Maine for businesses of this kind. Collins Enterprises has provided, and continues to provide, steady, reliable employment for generations of local families. The company is healthy and viable and the envy of our competitors. If it can achieve all of this with Miss Havisham at the helm, I cannot see that you have any cause for worry!"

_Good points, _thought Bill. But Ned had come up here with three years' worth of things to say. He wasn't letting anything stop him from saying them.

"That's because you aren't down there with the rest of us. You don't see and hear what the rest of us see and hear. Sure the company's in good shape, on paper. But that's only half the story. You always say what matters most about Collins Enterprises is its people. Well, its people are scared, Liz. They're worried. They're confused. They don't know where they stand because they don't know what's going on with you.

"There's so little you'd have to do to make things right with them. Just come down off your hill once a month or so; it wouldn't take much. Come to the Christmas party, the annual picnic, employee funerals. Meet with your senior executives every now and then at the office instead of up here. For heaven's sake, go to your daughter's school pageant and Back-to-School night, so Bill here doesn't have to do it! Just a few little things, the things people expect of you. Then no one will worry. Then your employees, your town, won't be afraid that … that there's something wrong with you."

Liz waited a moment to be certain Ned had finished his speech. Then she aimed a challenging gaze at Bill. In dangerous softness she said to him, "You're being awfully quiet, Bill. What about it? Do you back Ned up on this?"

Mentally Bill sighed to himself. Since Ned had gone clambering out on that limb, he figured he ought to see whether the limb would hold the both of them without breaking.

"I guess I do, Liz. I reckon I don't need to say much. Ned's said all of it just about right. Give or take Miss Havisham. Everybody's worried for you, Liz. Everyone. Maybe Collins Enterprises only employs half the town, but there wouldn't be a town at all without the company. And there wouldn't be a company without you. And everyone knows it. Everybody's scared and everybody's beginning to wonder if just maybe the ship's starting to sink. And if you don't either come down off this hill or else start seeing a shrink, then everything's just going to keep on getting worse."

_And Godalmighty, _he thought, _what did I just say? I just told my boss who is also the woman I love that I think she needs to have her head examined!_

Liz studied Bill and Ned with her look that made the Maine winter night outside seem like a tropical paradise.

"I see," she said. "My cannery manager thinks something is wrong with me and my assistant fleet manager believes I should see a psychiatrist. Is this the level of conversation that 'everyone' is indulging in regarding me? If so, I don't believe I have missed much by not descending from my hill to listen to it."

"For crying out loud!" Bill exclaimed. "It's gol-danged obvious you need _some _kind of help! If you didn't, you would have washed that S.O.B. Stoddard out of your hair by now and you'd be getting on with your life! For God's sake, Liz! Tell us what help you need. We'll do everything we can to make it happen."

"He's right," Ned said firmly. "Tell us what you need and we'll do it. We'll do anything we have to, to help you."

For the second time that night, Bill wasn't sure what the expression was that he saw on Liz's face. Fear, maybe. Maybe it was hope. Then whatever that look had been, it was gone. Her far more familiar expressions of coldness and self-control were firmly back in place. "I don't need you to do '_anything_,'" Liz frostily declared. "I need you to do the jobs for which you were hired. And I need you to let me do my job, instead of undermining my position with vicious gossip about the state of my sanity."

Ned's drunken courage had brought them up here. But right at this moment, Bill was as fed-to-the-back-teeth with this whole wretched business as Ned could possibly be. He growled, "That's not what we're doing and you know it."

From the anger that sparked in her face _now_, Liz was about to say something to him that both of them would regret. Ned Calder jumped in to draw her fire.

"Bill told you that people are starting to wonder if the Collins ship is sinking. That's what both of us are afraid of. That's what we're trying to stop. Sure, like you said: the company's healthy now. It only takes one small weakness, for that to start to change. You said our competitors envy us. Sure they do. From envy it's just one small step for them to start trying to cut us down. Or take us over.

"You know we're already that little bit more vulnerable than most of our competitors, just because we've got a woman at the helm. With a woman CEO, our rivals automatically assume we're slightly more fragile – slightly less stable – that tiny little bit more prone to the kind of uncertainty that brings a company down. It's crap. It shouldn't be that way. But it _is _that way. And you know that, Liz, and you've always known it.

"Before this thing with Stoddard, you were able to keep the company above all of that. Your strength was enough to wipe those questions out of everyone's minds. But now … well, now our people arequestioning. They've got doubts. They're wondering about you. And if _they're _wondering, you can bet the competition is, too.

"It's that little whiff of blood in the water, and the sharks are circling. They're all going to start nosing around us to see if maybe we're ripe for a takeover. Maybe some of them'll start trying to talk Roger into selling his shares. Maybe they'll start trying to lure away our workers. Logansport, Bucksport, Stinson Seafood … they're going to start sniffing out our weaknesses, and then we'll have a real fight on our hands. Unless you show them the weakness just isn't there. Unless you show our people and everyone else that there's no reason to wonder or be afraid."

_Jeez-oh-pete_, Bill thought. _Either Ned's sobered up pretty darn quick, or the booze really does give him the gift of gab sometimes. _Bill just about felt like applauding.

From the look on Liz's face, Ned's speech didn't affect her so favorably. But at least she hadn't fired either of them, yet.

For what felt like a helluva long Goddam time, Liz stared at the two of them. When, at last, she said something, her tone was a lot less cold and scathing than Bill figured it would be.

"You're right about one thing," she told them. "I need to discuss this further with both of you. But not here. Not with Carolyn upstairs. If she has managed to sleep through your visit thus far, I don't want to risk waking her with a conversation that may lead to further raised voices. On my part as well as yours."

Ned and Bill glanced at each other in wary surprise. Then they watched as Liz walked over to the telephone on the sideboard. Reaching for the receiver, she paused to ask them, "Do either of you have a coat with you?"

"Uh, mine's in the car," Ned answered.

"'Fraid not," said Bill. "I left mine at the office." _Because, _he added silently, _I didn't expect to get hijacked out of the Christmas party to go ride shotgun on Ned's attempt to Say Everything That Needs to be Said._

She nodded and dialed the number. They soon learned who she was telephoning: Matthew Morgan, Bill and Ned's fellow member of the Elizabeth Collins Stoddard Fan Club.

"Matthew?" Liz said. "I'm sorry to bother you so late. Could you come up to the house, please, so someone will be here in case Carolyn wakes up? Mr. Calder and Mr. Malloy are here. I'll be going out for a walk with them. And would you bring an extra coat with you, that Mr. Malloy could borrow? Thank you, Matthew. I'll see you soon."

Bill took out his watch to check it. Ten thirty had just passed. A 10:30 walk in the snow with the cannery manager and assistant fleet manager – on an almost moonless night, no less – was a bit on the eccentric side. But Bill didn't figure that would matter to Matthew. From what he had seen of their fellow employee since the day Liz hired him as groundskeeper three years ago, Matthew Morgan took pride in obeying Liz's every order without question or complaint. No matter how off-the-wall some of Liz's orders might seem.

_Not, _Bill thought, _that Ned and I are any less obedient to her. We just question and complain first. And then we obey her anyway._

Liz opened a drawer of the sideboard and took out three flashlights. "You'll need these," she said, distributing one to each of her surprise walking-companions. Then she told them, "You can wait here while I put on my boots."

Neither of them bothered to obey that particular order. With another quizzical look at each other and a couple of shrugs, they trailed after Liz into the foyer. She was standing just inside the front door, putting on snow boots. For the first time that evening, Bill spared more than a passing thought for the fact that Liz had changed her clothes from the dress she'd been wearing when he brought Carolyn home from the pageant. The CEO of Collins Enterprises was now wearing jeans and a red turtleneck sweater, both of which fit her snugly in all the right places. She had pulled her hair back in a bun that would give the appearance of a spinster schoolmarm to just about anyone else, but not to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. From her outfit, Bill figured she had either been doing housecleaning – not an easy task at Collinwood these days, since Liz had fired all of the staff – or else their upcoming stroll wasn't her first hike of the day.

Matthew Morgan entered the great house in a swirl of wind-blown snow. He smiled warmly, if shyly, in response to Liz's words of greeting and thanks.

"It's no problem at all, Miz Stoddard. Miss Carolyn won't be any trouble if she wakes up. She never is. She always knows exactly what fairytale she wants me to read to her. And she fixes my pronunciation for me if I say anything wrong. Evening, Bill; Mr. Calder;" he added. "Here's that coat for you, Bill."

"Thanks." Being Matthew's overcoat, it hung loosely enough on Bill that he reckoned it made him look like a scarecrow. But he thought he would rather look like a scarecrow than go slogging through the snow without a coat.

Liz had her own coat on now. She led the way out the door. As she did so, she cast a glance downward at her companions' footwear. "I'm afraid the snow won't do your shoes any good," she remarked, without any noticeable sympathy. "I'm sure you are paid well enough that you can afford new shoes."

_She's enjoying this, _Bill thought, while he and Liz waited for Ned to collect his coat from the car. He guessed it was fair enough for Liz to enjoy their predicament.

A snowy hike, and getting snow in their shoes, were milder punishments than they could have expected for their drunken drive up the hill – and for the things they'd dared to say tonight to the Queen of Collinwood.

_And damn,_ Bill thought, _am I ever getting snow in my shoes._ His socks were already soaked as soon as they walked a few steps beyond the driveway.

It wasn't snowing. But it might just as well have been, for the way the wind blew the snow around. Liz headed their procession like King Wenceslas, with Ned and Bill trooping along in her footprints.

By the light of the flashlights, Bill saw that the prints they were making now weren't the only sets of tracks in the snow. In some spots the tracks were too muddled for him to see them clearly. And the blowing snow did its best to disguise the trail. But here and there Bill could tell the earlier tracks marked a return trip. Some of them headed the same way that Liz, Ned and Bill were walking now. Others returned toward Collinwood. As they trudged along, Bill had plenty of time to study the tracks. The footprints belonged to two people walking side by side: a petite-footed adult, and a child.

_Liz and Carolyn, _he thought. _Good. _

If mother and daughter went hiking together this afternoon, then the chances were good that Carolyn was speaking to her mother again.

Liz led them onward into the woods. In the shelter of the trees a lot less snow blew in their faces. Of course there was now a strong likelihood of getting whacked in the face with snow-laden tree branches.

By now Bill knew where Liz was taking them. He figured Ned Calder knew it as well as he did.

They were following the trail to the cliff, to the crest of Widow's Hill.

Bill and Liz went out there together a few times, when they were dating in the summer of '46. The contrast between those visits and this one was too frustrating for Bill to contemplate. So he told himself he just wasn't going to contemplate it.

Doubtless Ned had his own fond memories of that cliff top. Bill was sure Ned had to have gone out there with Liz on more than a few occasions, considering that Ned was her on-again, off-again boyfriend for years, back in the '30s. And that was another topic Bill decidedly didn't want his thoughts to dwell on. He thought, _I'm not contemplating that, either!_

As he trudged, he thought that if Liz's only goal was to talk with them where Carolyn wouldn't be disturbed, this little jaunt was over-kill and then some. They could have talked at the gazebo. Or out in the courtyard. Or in the garage. Or in Matthew Morgan's cottage.

For that matter, they could have talked in the study at Collinwood. They really would have to be yelling bloody murder, for anyone upstairs to hear somebody in there.

But of course Bill knew that as far as Liz was concerned, their promised discussion was probably the least important feature of this hike. The way he figured it, the expedition through the snow was punishment duty for him and Ned. He reckoned they should see it as the equivalent of rubbing a puppy's nose in its house-breaking error while smacking it with a rolled-up newspaper.

The trees around them got shorter and scrubbier. Then the trees were gone. Liz, Ned and Bill were at the top of the cliff. And so was the wind.

_Jehoshaphat,_ Bill thought. _That's cold!_

As a sailor and a native of Maine, cold ought to mean nothing to him. _But, damn!_ he thought anyway._ If _that _isn't cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, then I don't know what is!_

Bill knew there was a new moon out there somewhere. Its light was too faint for it to fight its way through the clouds. In the dark they couldn't see anything of the waves they heard crashing on the rocks far beneath them.

Things always sounded different up here at the crest of the hill. Wind and waves combined to form the cries of mourning ghosts. The high-pitched wail of the wind blended with a hollow booming as the waves crashed through the sea cave at the foot of the cliff. Obviously it was high tide now, or nearly. Only at high tide did the ocean reach the cave and create that unforgettable, haunting sound.

The light of their flashlights showed a figure sculpted from snow, a few feet back from the cliff's edge. A snowman, Bill thought. But then he looked more closely and saw that the top snowball on that figure had a big snout and folded-down ears. Next to that figure was a smaller one, formed out of two snowballs with a lot of twigs sticking out of it at either side.

Liz said, "Carolyn and I were out here this afternoon. That's when we made these. They're Wilbur and Charlotte."

"Some pig," Bill and Ned remarked in unison. The two men glanced at each other in surprise. Bill figured they were probably each equally taken aback to learn that the other one was familiar with that book.

Bill said to Ned, "Carolyn loves _Charlotte's Web. _After Liz read it to her, she made me borrow it and made me promise I would read it."

Ned nodded. "Suzy and Doug love it, too. That's a good idea. Tomorrow I'll suggest to them that we go out and build snow Charlottes and Wilburs."

Liz sat down on the boulder next to the snowpig and snowspider. Graciously she gestured to two other nearby boulders, as though they were chairs in the Collinwood drawing room. She offered, "Why don't you two take a seat?"

If Bill gave an honest answer to that question, it would be, _Because I would rather keep on standing than plant my rear on a cold rock. _ The Widows' Hill wind had blown most of the snow off the boulders, except for a few nooks and crannies where pockets of snow remained. But it still didn't strike him as any kind of comfortable seat. However, he figured it would look rude of him to decline Liz's invitation.

Ned had already picked a boulder and sat down. Bill plunked himself down on the boulder next to Ned's.

Liz switched off her flashlight. The two men put theirs down on the rocks beside them, still lit but angled so as not to shine into anybody's face.

Liz gazed toward the edge of the cliff, toward the sound of the sea. After a long silence, in which Bill and Ned cast a few uncomfortable glances at each other, she began to speak.

She said, "I brought Carolyn out here this afternoon to explain to her … the same thing I'll try to explain to you. I brought her here to tell her why I'm not going to leave Collinwood until her father returns home."

Bill felt his heart rate jump. He wondered if there was any chance that she would tell them the real answer.

The mistress of Collinwood kept on gazing at the ocean none of them could see.

"I told her some of the stories of why this place is named Widows' Hill. I told her of all those women who waited here, over the years, watching for their husbands to come home."

She turned to look at Ned and Bill. In the vague gleam from the flashlights, Bill thought he could see a faint, sad smile on her face.

"Not all of them became widowed, you know," Liz told them. "Some of those women who waited here _did _see their husbands come back to them. Back through the waves. Back to shore and home.

"I told Carolyn it's like a kind of magic. I told her I believe that if I wait at Collinwood, where I last saw her father … if I keep on waiting and I never leave until the day he comes back to us … then that will bring him home."

_This can't be the real answer, _Bill thought. _It can't be. _

Ned cleared his throat quietly and asked Liz, "Did she believe that?"

"I think so," Liz answered. Her smile became clearer to see, although it looked just as sad as it had seemed before. "It's the sort of thing that five-year-olds believe."

Ned asked the same thing that Bill wanted to ask next. "Is it something _you_ believe?"

At that, she looked away once more. "It's hard to tell the real truth of that. It's hard to tell it to the two of you. It may be even harder to tell it to myself."

The waves and wind sang their hollow song together. Liz stared into the darkness, listening.

"Do you mean it's difficult to tell us?" Bill asked her. "Or do you mean you don't know the answer?"

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard turned again to face them. "Bill …" she began, "Ned …

Here's the truth. As much of it as I can tell you.

"It's my fault Paul left me. It's my fault that he's gone. It's my fault at least as much as it is his. It's … probably more mine than his.

"I did something that made him leave me. And I can't help thinking … Oh, Ned! Bill!" she suddenly exclaimed. Her face and her voice both were pleading. Both her face and her voice were unbearably beautiful. It was all Bill could do to force himself not to go to her and clasp her in his arms, and to hell with the fact that Ned Calder was sitting right there beside him.

Probably, Bill knew, Ned Calder was thinking the same exact damn thing.

"I know it isn't logical," Liz said to them. "I know it's not a rational way to think. But I can't help thinking that if I make amends for what I did … if I make some atonement by forcing myself to stay here, waiting for Paul to return … then I will finally deserve the chance to see my husband again."

"Liz," said Ned, standing up abruptly. "We could give you a whole list of the flaws in that reasoning. Number one flaw is: we know Paul Stoddard. We know he's sure to be at least at much as fault as you are, in whatever happened between you. We know he's not worth tearing yourself up for. You can bet _he _isn't beating himself up over what happened. He's off living the good life somewhere, with all the booze and blondes he can get his hands on, and if he ever thinks about you or Carolyn at all, it's to calculate how long he should wait before dropping by for a visit to squeeze some more money out of you."

"Stop," Liz said, with desperation in her voice. "Stop, Ned. Don't say things like that. You don't know. You don't understand."

The words burst out before Bill could stop himself. He jumped to his feet beside Ned and exclaimed, "So tell us, Liz. _Tell us! What _don't we know? What don't we understand?"

Liz stood as well. For a moment she stared at them, with a wild, tormented expression on her face. Then she looked away, out to the sea.

"I can't stand it," she said bitterly. "I can't stand seeing you look at me like that. Both of you, standing there looking at me, with such affection, such trust … You don't know. You just don't know. You wouldn't look at me that way if you knew."

"_Tell us, Liz_," begged Ned. "Tell us what we don't understand."

She waited a long time to answer. Once again Bill wondered if they were finally, finally going to hear the truth. But then Liz gave a brittle, fake little laugh. She said, "You don't understand just how far off the deep end I've gone."

She turned to face them again. Her small, cold smile had nothing to do with the expression in her eyes.

"There's no help for it," she said. "I won't be leaving Collinwood. I won't set one foot off the grounds of this estate until my husband returns home. That's what I believe I must do. And that's all there is to it."

Ned started to say something. Liz flung up one hand to hold back his words. "I knowit doesn't make sense. I know I'm only confirming what both of you already thought about me. That there _is _something wrong with me. That I _do _need to see a shrink. But there are times … I don't know if you can understand this. There are times when belief is stronger than anything else. It's stronger than logic. Stronger than reason. It's the strongest thing there is. And we _have _to do the things that we believe in. Even though reason and logic and all the rest of the world tell us our belief is wrong. _Can _you understand?"

_Sure, Liz, _Bill thought. _Sure, we can understand. Because it's the same kind of thing that brought the two of us up this hill tonight. Because loving you is the strongest thing in either of our lives. And it has nothing to do with logic or reason. And it's hopeless._

_And – at least in the case of the man with the pregnant wife and the three kids at home – by pretty much every definition in the world, it's wrong. _

Ned, for his part, answered Liz's question with a question of his own. He asked her, "Did you say something like that to Carolyn today? Did you tell her we have to do the things we believe in, even though everything else says they're wrong? Did you tell her that's what this 'magic' you're talking about is? It's you believing in something so much that it turns into the only thing that's real?"

"I—" Liz began, frowning at Ned in surprise. "No, Ned," she said, with the beginnings of anger in her tone. "No. I didn't say all of that to Carolyn."

"I hope not," Ned told her gruffly. "It's a dangerous example to set for a child. Maybe someday she'll do the same thing. She'll tell you she has to follow what she believes, even though you know that it's wrong. And you won't have a chance of stopping her. Because what she's doing, she will have learned from you."

Liz raised her eyebrows at that. She pointed out, "I wouldn't have a chance of stopping her, anyway. Would I? She'll do what she believes she must, no matter what I say. Isn't that a lesson all parents have to learn?"

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard shook her head. Her hands were clasped tightly together in front of her. Bill recognized that gesture. He knew Liz did that when she was desperately trying to hang on. To hang on to her calm, her self-control. To hang on to everything that she demanded of herself.

"I've just made everything worse with both of you. Haven't I?" she asked. Her voice held a defiant ring. "Will you become two of the sharks that are circling me? Will you be the ones who try to oust me from Collins Enterprises? To replace me with Roger? Because I've just shown you beyond the last shadow of doubt that I've gone out of mind?"

"Damn it, Liz," Bill snapped. "You know we'll never do that. You know we never could."

Ned put in, "Back at the house tonight we asked you to let us help you. We're still waiting for you to tell us how."

Searchingly she gazed at them. At last she said, "I need you both to be honest with me. I need you to be as honest with me as … as I haven't been able to be with you."

They stood there and waited for her, until she asked them, "_Do _you think I'm failing the company? Do you believe my performance as CEO has suffered since all of this began? Apart from … apart from everyone's fears and concerns because I'm not leaving Collinwood – apart from what it does to the people in my life – are there other causes for complaint?"

They thought about it. Unsurprisingly, they came up with the same answer.

"No, Liz," Ned Calder said. "Apart from what it does to all the people who care for you, nobody has any cause for complaint."

"That's my answer, too," said Bill Malloy. "You're still at the top of your game. Nothing could bring you or Collins Enterprises down – except for whatever this thing is you're doing to your life."

"Good," Liz said firmly. "Then that's how I need the two of you to help me. I need you to help me hold off the challenges you warned me of. When you hear the whispers, try to stop them. When our people are worried, try to make them see there's no call to be afraid. I need you to hear everything for me, see everything for me, tell me everything I would see and hear for myself if I were at the office and the cannery and the docks, day after day. I need you to help me make it look as though everything is business as usual. Try to make everyone forget things have ever been any different. If _you_ can truly believe that Collins Enterprises will survive this – if you can believe that all of us will survive this – then you can help make everyone else believe that, too. In spite of whatever this thing is that I'm doing to my life."

Bill had no idea how he would go about answering that. Fortunately Liz did not seem to expect immediate answers. She took out the flashlight from her coat pocket and switched it on. Then she said in brisk tones, "I'm going back to the house. I'll leave the two of you to discuss things." Dryly she added, "And I'll have Matthew drive you home. With the CEO living as a recluse, we can't afford to have our senior staff members slaughtering themselves on the roads."

After that less-than-sympathetic comment, her voice and her expression softened. She said to them, "Thank you both for coming up here. Thank you for wanting to help me."

She gazed at them as though she believed she might never see them again. And she told them quietly, "Goodnight."

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard turned and strode away through the footprints in the snow.

They watched until the gleam of her flashlight disappeared in the trees. About them, the Widows' Hill wind danced and moaned.

Ned Calder asked Bill Malloy, "You got any idea what happened out here tonight?"

Bill answered, "The only idea I've got is that Liz just wrapped the both of us around her little finger. Like always."

"Well?" asked Ned. "Do you want to unwrap yourself? Do you want to break free of her?"

"Nope," Bill said heavily. "Do you?"

Calder turned away, so that Bill couldn't see his face. "Yes. I do."

The depth of self-loathing in Ned's voice took Bill completely by surprise.

"My God," Ned went on. "Yes. I want to break free of her. And I know that I never will."

_And that, _thought Bill, _is the end of _this _conversation!_ He said, "I do have one other idea. It's that I'm freezing my ass off. You ready to head back? You don't want to hang out here and discuss things like Liz told us to?"

"No." Ned's voice was shaking now. It could have been laughter and it could have been tears. Bill didn't know which it was, and he didn't want to find out. Ned said, "If we discuss things any further, I'm going to be the next person who jumps off this cliff."

"Then let's go. I don't want to hear you wailing at me the next time I'm up here. After you," Bill added to Ned, gesturing toward the trees.

So back they tromped along the trail of footprints. Bill was glad when the moans of the ghostly wind and waves faded out of hearing behind them. He was glad when there was nothing for them to hear but the tree branches they shoved out of their way, and the snow that crunched under their feet.

When they reached the Great House of Collinwood, Matthew Morgan was waiting for them. Hands shoved in the pockets of his pea coat, but otherwise calmly unfazed by the night's chill, he stood leaning against the Collins family station wagon, idling in the driveway.

"Evening," Matthew called to them. "Get in. I've got the heater going."

"Thanks," Bill said, and he meant it. He asked Ned, "You want the front seat?" He hoped Ned would say he didn't, since he was looking forward to his hands getting up- close-and-personal with the dashboard heater vent. But he figured he had to make the offer.

"No, thank you," answered Ned, with an ostentatious yawn. "I'll take the back so I can nap on the way home."

As they headed for the car doors, Matthew said, "If you let me have the key, Mr. Calder, I'll move your Coupe into the garage for you when I get back."

"Bill's got my keys," Ned said brusquely, settling into the back seat. Bill took out the keys and handed them over to Matthew.

They were down the driveway and turning onto the road when Ned spoke up again, "That reminds me, though. Crap. How am I going to get back to my car? Oh, well. It won't be the first time I've walked up this hill."

"Don't be an idiot," Bill told him. "I'll pick you up and drive you up here. Noon sound okay to you? Think you'll be awake by then?" Officially, of course, he wasn't supposed to use the company car for anything but Collins Enterprises business. But if giving the cannery manager a ride to pick up his car wasn't company business, Bill figured it was close enough.

"Yeah. Thanks," Ned muttered. "Noon sounds okay. The kids'll have us out of bed at the crack of dawn, anyway."

Matthew Morgan wasn't much for idle conversation. That was just fine as far as Bill was concerned. Particularly tonight.

Matthew wasn't much for _idle_ conversation. But when they'd reached the bottom of the hill and were heading into town, he observed, "Guess you boys didn't get what you went up the hill for tonight."

"That depends on what we went up the hill for," said Bill. "If we went up there for a snowy hike and to freeze our tails off, we got it."

"Nope. You went up there to try and talk Miz Stoddard into coming down off the hill."

Ned wasn't napping in the back seat, after all. Bill hadn't figured he would be. Sharply Ned asked Matthew, "Did Liz tell you that?"

"She didn't have to. Some things I can figure out for myself."

No one said anything more until they were halfway down Main Street. Then Matthew broke the silence again.

"I'm gonna give the both of you some advice. Don't try it again. You let Miz Stoddard live the way she chooses. You want to be friends to her, do what she asks you to. Leave everything else alone. The past is the past and it oughtta stay that way. Don't go digging into things that'd better stay buried."

"No one's talking about the past," Bill said. That was only half true, but what the hell. "It's Liz and Carolyn's present we're worried about. And their future."

Matthew made the turn from Main Street onto the Coast Road. He said, "You let her make the decisions on that. Give her the help she asks you for. What she doesn't ask you for, stay out of it. That's the way to help Miz Stoddard and Miss Carolyn. That's the way to be their friend."

From the back seat, Ned's voice challenged, "What about when it's the job of a friend to ask questions? What about when you need to make your friend face up to what has to be changed? Instead of letting them bury it away?"

Matthew tried hard to keep his voice to its usual calm drawl. His efforts didn't quite work. Bill was sure he heard anger in Matthew Morgan's voice; anger that the groundskeeper was holding under very tight rein.

"That ain't what's going on here," Matthew said. "You should just let Miz Stoddard make her own decisions. Do what she asks and don't go asking questions. Or you're gonna lose her. If you care about her like you say you do, then you have to believe what she wants is the right thing. It's the only thing that matters."

"Is that what you believe, Matthew?" Bill asked.

"Ayup, Bill," Matthew answered. "And you believe it too. Don't you."

It wasn't a statement Bill felt comfortable with making. All the same, he said, "I guess I do."

_Within reason, _his thoughts added, hedging his bets.

_But just where does reason end and something else begin?_

Probably Ned was uncomfortable with this whole darned conversation. He changed the subject with a big yawning groan. "Godalmighty. What _I_ believe is that I'm going to have one helluva headache in the morning."

Bill's house was the first on their route, since the Calder family had moved out to the new Collinsport Pines subdivision. They were almost to Bill's place when the headlights showed three people walking at the side of the road: two adults with a little kid between them. Slowing the car, Matthew said to Bill, "Roll down the window. Maybe they need a ride."

The moment he started opening the window, they heard that the people were singing. And before they were close enough to recognize the singers, Bill recognized one of the voices. He'd heard his down-the-street neighbor singing in the garden enough times – not to mention on various occasions down at the Blue Whale – that he knew that big bass voice belonged to nobody but Sam Evans. Bill wasn't sure if he'd heard Sam's wife singing before. But he was very happy to hear her now. And little Maggie's voice piped up loud and clear, audible even amid her Pop's operatic tones.

They were singing a Christmas carol Bill remembered from his childhood. He remembered singing it with Mom and Dad, while Ellie played the piano. He was sorry when the Evanses stopped singing, as the car drew close and pulled up beside them.

"Sorry to interrupt," Bill called to them. "It sounded great. Prettiest thing we've heard all night."

The Evans family looked like the illustration for a Christmas card. Bundled up, rosy-cheeked with the cold, smiling the smiles of the truly, deeply happy.

"Hello, there, Bill," Sam greeted him. "And Matthew," he added, squinting into the car. "Hello to you, too, in the back there. Can't see who you are."

"Ned Calder," Ned answered. "Thanks for the carol."

It was the second time Bill saw the Evanses that day. Maggie's class had performed right after Carolyn's class in the pageant, and Bill sat next to Sam and Mary in the audience. What with the brouhaha with Carolyn after the show, he hadn't had a chance to congratulate Maggie. So now he told her, "Your bell solo was beautiful this morning."

The little girl grinned shyly. "Thank you, Mr. Malloy," she said. Then she hid her face against her father's coat in embarrassment.

Bill asked the Evanses, "You taking up midnight carol-singing?"

"Nah, Mary sang in the concert tonight at the Methodist Church," Sam answered. "We're just walking home from there."

Mary added, "It's a good thing we don't have many neighbors to be disturbed by our yodeling."

"Best yodeling I ever heard," said Bill. "You've got this neighbor's permission to yodel whenever you want to."

"I'll remind you of that someday," warned the grinning Sam Evans.

Matthew Morgan drove onward, then, amid general calls of "goodnight" and "Merry Christmas." In the next moment they drove past the Evans cottage.

"'Peace on earth, good will to men,'" Ned Calder muttered, quoting from the Evanses' carol. "I guess we can always hope."

Three houses further along, they came to Bill Malloy's home, sweet home.

As he got out of the car, Bill folded up the borrowed coat and placed it on the front seat. "Thanks for the loan," he told Matthew.

"Sure thing. 'Night, Bill."

"'Night," Bill repeated.

"Goodnight, Bill," said Ned in gloomy tones. "Sweet dreams."

"Ayup. You too."

Walking down the pathway to his dark, silent house, Bill wistfully envied Sam, Mary and Maggie Evans.

_Sure is an awful lot of nobody to welcome me home, _he thought. _ Sure is an awful quiet place with Mom and Dad and Ellie gone._

Tonight there wouldn't even be any dinner left warming for him by his housekeeper. He'd told Mrs. Johnson he would be eating at the company Christmas party.

Bill headed to the kitchen. At first he thought about fixing himself a sandwich. Then he decided that what he really wanted was coffee.

That night, as he was getting the coffee going, he made a decision. He would invite Mrs. Johnson to move into the house.

The idea had never seemed practical before. When her kids were still at home, the family needed its own place. But now Harry and Esther were both out on their own. And Mrs. Johnson was on her own, too, for the first time in decades. Bill figured sometimes her house must feel as empty to her as his felt to him tonight.

Living rent-free, he thought, would be appealing to her, too. Particularly now when she was scrimping and saving every penny, to help Esther with the University of Massachusetts tuition payments.

Mrs. Johnson could have the downstairs bedroom. The one Dad used in his last year when he couldn't manage the stairs. It was right next to the kitchen, and it had its own outside door and porch. Mrs. Johnson would still have her own space, and Bill would still have his. But it would be a very nice thing, he thought, to sometimes see a light on in the house when he came home. To have someone to drink an evening cup of coffee with, now and then. Someone to watch a bit of television with. Someone he would ask how her day had gone, and who would ask about his day. He thought it might do both of them a world of good, just to be reminded by someone else's presence that they weren't entirely alone.

He thought, _I'll phone her tomorrow afternoon and suggest it. After I get back from driving Ned to pick up his car._

While the coffee was brewing, Bill went into the parlor. He wanted to look up the words to that carol the Evanses had been singing.

He found it exactly where he'd expected to. Inside the piano bench, with Mom's collection of sheet music, there was the big, brick-like volume _Carols Old and Carols New._

It didn't take him long to locate the song. At first he thought he might sing it. Then he realized that if he tried singing that song tonight, it was pretty damned certain that he would end up crying.

So he settled into the Morris chair, next to the piano, and read.

_I heard the bells on Christmas Day_

_ Their old familiar carols play_

_ And wild and sweet, the words repeat_

_ Of peace on earth, good will to men._

_ I thought how, as the day had come,_

_ The belfries of all Christendom_

_ Had rolled along the unbroken song_

_ Of peace on earth, good will to men._

_ And in despair I bowed my head:_

_ "There is no peace on earth," I said,_

_ "For hate is strong and mocks the song_

_ "Of peace on earth, good will to men."_

_ Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:_

_ "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;_

_ "The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,_

_ "With peace on earth, good will to men."_

_ Till ringing, singing, on its way,_

_ The world revolved from night to day,_

_ A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,_

_ Of peace on earth, good will to men._

Bill sighed as he shut the book of carols old and new.

_I guess Ned is right, _he thought. _I guess we can always hope._

When the coffee was ready, he put on his backup overcoat. His usual coat was still at the office. He went outside, onto the porch, with his nice hot cup of coffee to keep him company.

Granddad had added this porch onto the house when Bill was a baby. Bill remembered so many hours he had spent out here with Granddad, drawing or reading or doing his homework while Granddad sat in his rocking chair and watched the ocean.

And he remembered Granddad out here on the porch playing first mate, or ship's cook, or enemy pirate chief. Because once upon a time, this porch was the deck of a tall, fair ship. It was the deck of the ship that little Billy Malloy had sailed far and wide, to exotic foreign ports and across each and every one of the Seven Seas.

Bill leaned against the porch rail. He clutched his coffee cup and listened to the waves.

Down here the waves sounded nothing like how they sounded at the crest of Widows' Hill. Here the waves sounded to him like rest. And comfort. And home.

And down here the wind had the sound of distant voices singing Christmas carols. Down here the wind never sounded like the sobs of long-dead widows, grieving for the love they had lost.

Granddad built this porch in order to watch the sea. It hadn't ever mattered to him that from out here on his porch – if the fog wasn't too thick – one could look up to the hill and see the Great House of Collinwood, way up there in the distance.

Not that Bill could see much of the Great House now. Not when the night was as dark as the inside of a goat.

But he could see what he so often saw, when he looked up there at night. He could see that in just one of Collinwood's many rooms, a window still gleamed with light.

He didn't know for certain it was Liz's window. He had never been up to her room. He didn't know where her room was.

But he figured it made sense for the room to be hers. Where else would that light be shining, except in the bedroom of the mistress of Collinwood?

He raised his coffee cup, in a toast to her.

"Peace and good will, Liz," he murmured.

_You've got my good will, _he thought. _You've got my good will. And you've got Ned Calder's. And you've got Matthew Morgan's. You've got the good will of all of us._

_But who knows if you're going to find any peace. _

_Who knows if any of us will._

Bill Malloy listened to the sound of the waves. He drank his coffee, and he watched that one lighted window, as though it was the only star in his sky.


End file.
